Spoilers ahead!
13: It might have seemed as if I was snubbing Ransom in my last two posts, when I called him unimaginative and so on, but actually I was commenting on his character as Lewis intended it; he's all the more compelling because he arrives in Malacandra with room to grow. It wasn't until I read this chapter that his insecurity truly sank in for me, but now I think it's the key to his character. He reminds me of Inglewood from Manalive; he's a scientist who quails in shame before the vastness of the universe, and his faith in his own decisions is limited by a fear of going out of bounds. Now he's finally striking out on his own for what looks like the classic hero's quest, and it seems he gained enough maturity in the last few chapters to get him off to a good running start. The fact that he now has the courage to brave a monster or a pair of gunslingers is no more impressive than the fact that he has the courage, once forgiven, to close his mouth, suppress the whining side of him, and ask for no more pardon. That is brilliant.
I love the way Lewis handles the whole situation of murderous humans vs. peaceful aliens. I didn't think there was a human being in the world who could pull off that cliché to my liking (even my beloved Bradbury fell short!), but then, this is the man who gave us Narnia. By the time he's done with it, it doesn't even feel like a cliché anymore. (But was it even a cliché back then? I'll have to look into that.)
14: I'm willing to bet that Ransom just stumbled into Malacandra's equivalent to the giant's palace in The Silver Chair. The perfect trap for the determined traveler: tempting, cozy, deliciously warm...and full of creatures who see him as a cooking ingredient.
15: And here, in this warm nook, safe from the biting wind, Ransom encounters "the bleakest moment in all his travels".
16. There's a childlikeness to Ransom here, as in a few previous chapters; he rides on the shoulder of a sorn and feels as if he's riding on his father's back. Well, it only makes sense, since he's essentially been born into a new world and has to age accordingly.
I take back what I said about the sorn being evil giants; Ransom and I have changed our minds. They seem more like the opposite, a race of Puddleglums.
17: I love reading about the three different species of sentient life on Malacandra and their separate cultures; almost like an alien Middle-Earth. (The pfifltrig remind me of dwarves, and I suppose that would make the hrossa the hobbits.) So Malacandra is Mars, eh? Well, the back cover of my book kind of spoiled that for me by calling it the "red planet", but I still think it was a smart move on Lewis's part not to name it until he'd already portrayed it in detail--people tend to have preconceived notions of Mars, and they'd get in the way. And what a picture. Seriously, if someone could make a movie of this and do it right, it would blow Avatar out of the water.
Ransom's taking a bit of a rest, but his quest isn't over yet. In fact, I suspect he's on the immediate precipice of something huge. Only time, and the final chapters, will tell...
I think my favorite observations of yours are on Ransom's own personality and "rebirth", and on the similarities between this and Middle Earth. It always irked me that Tolkien did not seem to appreciate Lewis...though maybe I'm getting the wrong idea about this.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much, Moira. It really means a lot to me!
DeleteI think that Tolkien, because he spent so much time creating the world's most elaborate fantasy universe, was way more opinionated about such things than the average reader. He had his own self-built set of standards that came from constantly having his head in Middle-Earth: no allegory, no world-hopping, and so on. Only natural, but I don't think it made him the best judge of a series like Narnia, and on some level he probably understood that himself.